In Memoriam Billings Senior High School Class of 1979

RantWoman has been feeling all Time-Warpy for all kinds of reasons including opting to go to NPYM Annual Session instead of her 40th HS reunion. RantWoman here honors the faithfulness  of someone who also did not attend the reunion about collecting obituaries and death notices for a number of the 630 people in our class who have already passed away. Some RantWoman knew, many not.

The Prayer Life of Quakers

RantWoman feels VERY humble.

RantWoman had the privilege just in the course of tending to Midweek Meeting for Worship of sitting in worship with David Johnson and his wife Trish. RantWoman is sorry a sincere young seeker was not present because RantWoman thinks Young Seeker  who has been attending for a couple weeks would also have appreciated the depth of worship.

RantWoman despite the depth of worshipful presence, still a little bit had brain running all over the place during worship. RantWoman is very grateful to reflect on a small Quaker worship group in tropical NE Australia, out near the Great Barrier Reef. RantWoman’s head is maybe a little too full of Sea Level rise maps and wildfire prognostications; for that reason alone, the thought of Quaker faithfulness near the Great barrier Reef somehow steadies her; RantWoman is grateful for the details that emerged after worship, details of morning worship every day while they stay at Quaker house, details of their travels.

 

And this is RantWoman, who is also grateful for these reflections on the path from Quaker contemplation to Quakers on Fire; Quakers on Fire definitely gets its own post so readers can drink in this video without having to deal with Quakers on Fire too.

 

In Light and Faithfulness

 

RantWoman.

Restroom? Not yet because...

Full disclosure: RantWoman started this rant because she is all upset about several different restroom-related matters. RantWoman is clear that one of the matters needs more attention than RantWoman and one person, but RantWoman is NOT clear that the matter in question belongs on RantWoman’s blog. RantWoman is meditating about what MIGHT be solvable in email and what needs other fora.

 

In the meantime, RantWoman owes the world or at least … some comments about why our Meeting needs to form an ad-hoc committee on disability concerns. RantWoman does not entirely apologize for dumping out her concerns helter-skelter higgledy piggledy while she is trying to digest the intersection of disability and racism at two national conferences, to season how to approach multiple non-Quaker threads, to digest moments from NPYM Annual Session, and to corral the concerns into lists that can be prioritized.

 

RantWoman also does not entirely apologize if the first draft is in less than perfect Quakerese: RantWoman figures God and the gifts of many Friends can help handle the problem. RantWoman also notes that early morning Bible study at Annual Session was chapters 12, 13,14 of I Corinthians but that the passage about suffering for one’s faith in the worship group leaders’ packet did not exactly nudge RantWoman into full discussion of some headaches. Please hold all of that and the peculiar gifts of Joe Snyder Bible study in the Light.

 

 But back to reasons to create an ad-hoc committee.

1. One reason: To STOP ongoing harm.

 

1. Another reason: to allow Friends whose jobs REQUIRE attention to the ADA to have practice about meeting accessibility and to live by a single standard of truth about practices that enhance accessibility.

 

1. Still another reason: to promote community learning so maybe possibly RantWoman’s reflex not to forget but to forgive once and help people learn does not short circuit too often about generalized gag and scream.

 

1. Yet another version of Promote community learning, bubbling up in relation to “I feel burdened!” To share the burdens with people who have actually demonstrated that they can do what is needed while, er, maybe possibly, other people are still just ducking problems.
    
2. And then there would be chronicle evolution in thinking arising from multiple, er, colorful moments in Meeting for Business.

 

Consider the question of being heard.

RantWoman has previously posted about event planning and need to be able to communicate with event planners about accessibility needs. RantWoman can cite both very positive experiences and two  er three experiences, two attached to one Friend who has on other occasions made RantWoman feel VERY bullied, where things went badly awry. In one case, RantWoman was expected just to go down a list and guess who to call. In the other case, RantWoman was hung up on before she could even articulate her request related to the same hearing in large groups issues issues which Friends have SLOWLY come around about.

 

Because of previously being hung up on, RantWoman did not even try about a different request involving alternate formats for documents.  All of these moments are now deeply rooted in the try to forgive but definitely not forget corners of RantWoman’s psyche. RantWoman is also pretty reactive about “Please do not argue with my experience. Please do not try to tone-police for events RantWoman witnessed that you did not. Please trust RantWoman’s appreciation for long history enough to think that dealing with problems will go MUCH better than pretending they are not here.”

               

RantWoman recently articulated the point that excluding RantWoman from Meeting for Business creates many ongoing harms. One example: membership letters and memorial minutes are very important parts of community life. When RantWoman raised the issue of missing out on Business Meeting presentation of these communications, one weighty Friend suggested that “oh, we can record these.”

 

RantWoman is not going to speculate about whether the rest of Meeting will agree to recording. Past experience has been no. Furthermore, in this case, reversion from live presence and uneven willingness to use the Mic to crappy audio made by people untrained in how to make good recordings is a giant step BACKWARD in accessibility.

 

But RantWoman in the rest of your life, you are adamant about the importance of everyone in the room and on the phone learning how to work with phone-in options for public meetings.

 

Yes, because when the conversation is about transportation, the conversation is also ALWAYS about reducing the barriers to getting to the meeting in person. If a person with a disability has to walk / travel two miles down the gravel shoulder of a bad road just to get a bus to a meeting, being able to dial in is a HUGE increment in accessibility to the content of the meeting. That is NOT the case when RantWoman is being asked to accommodate everyone else’s ableism by making do after the fact with crappy audio on a recording

 

Furthermore RantWoman, you spent MONTHS trying to persuade one Friend that, given the burdens of agreeing on a location and travelling to a location, never mind the burdens of time, congestion, and other concerns about getting to the location, that MAYBE perhaps Friends COULD get some of the needed communications in progress BY CONFERENCE CALL?

 

Yep! RantWoman’s experience is that conference calls can be very effective. RantWoman likes that everyone is on the same footing visually. RantWoman recognizes that sighted people hate conference calls because all the visual cues sighted people rely on are missing. RantWoman also recognizes that conference calls can be hard for people with hearing issues and that people are unevenly enthusiastic about different technologies that can help improve people’s ability to hear. But we cannot get to what will work better if we do not start by talking about things that do not work!

 

In Light and Faithfulness

 

RantWoman

 

 

Quaker meeting: Worship according to Fleabag

From a British comedy series called Fleabag

Reply/all seasoned

Peace, Love, and Reply/all

 

Bless us oh lord for yeah though we slog through the bog of email overwhelm, thy bounty extends to issues which belong in email rather than on a blog. Yet before interacting further with group email, RantWoman is called to meditate upon the questions of reply/all in general and with respect to community email lists.
 

Community Email lists

First, with respect to community email lists, RantWoman GUESSES she is supposed to be tgrateful for one Friend who blurted out “you were the only one who objected so we ignored you.” RantWoman may not have been as clear as one might hope trying to object in Business meeting, but by observing another list, RantWoman has come to even greater clarity that SOMETIMES reply/all is a very important part of community life.

 

In particular, on the other list, there have been several moments where someone has died or there was some kind of life circumstance needing care. RantWoman may or may not have known the deceased well but as with in-person memorials, the reply/all flow created a rich tapestry of history and community connections, connections very important to RantWoman. These sort of connections may be more important to some Friends than others; RantWoman does not think it nurtures community life very well though just to make a blanket determination that they do not matter or cannot be supported.

 

RantWoman has made repeated requests to TALK ABOUT this aspect of community mailing lists and this has not happened. This would not be the only topic on RantWoman’s heart.  RantWoman is also finding it easy to think that difficulty talking about something no one anticipated or thought about means people just do not care about connections the same way as RantWoman. RantWoman notes that there is a further well of bad feeling because of another moment where RantWoman felt VERY bullied but also notes that sometimes a review after some interval can serve useful purposes. RantWoman supposes she MIGHT be able to live without Reply/all in this circumstance IF she felt space to speak her concern and to give others the option to reply in the first place.  In the second place, the subject of bullying needs its own attention.

 

One further technical note about reply/all to a mailing list: NOT doing reply/all is MUCH easier on the list than when RantWoman is supposed with bad eyes and screen reader tools to pick names out of a list.

 

 Reply/all when a topic might not belong on a blog

RantWoman is trying to have conversations about two related topics that to RantWoman’s sensibilities are not ripe for blogging.

 

RantWoman has received yet another email in the genre “RantWoman things are FINE. We are not even interacting with your points but we are sure things are FINE.” RantWoman is working on a “This is what does not look FINE to RantWoman” email. Part of the email thread also includes requests from two people asking to be deleted from a thread other people besides RantWoman included them in.

 

One Friend complains “I feel burdened.”

 Yeah? RantWoman is not unconcerned about burden. RantWoman remains faithful in her light that there ARE paths to SHARED burden. However RantWoman is torn: RantWoman can simply delete this Friend from email she sends out. That will ensure that burdens land on other people before they reach the new clerk. Or RantWoman can not violate her rule about not deleting people from a reply/all list if someone else has put them there. Please hold RantWoman’s discernment in the Light.

 

In the other case, RantWoman received a simple “please delete me from this list. RantWoman mysteriously finds it easy to interpret this request as “RantWoman shut up.” RantWoman would find it more helpful if the Friend were to get curious and ask “RantWoman, why did you include me…?” RantWoman being the opinionated and judgmental soul that she is, would think the Friend in question was more appropriately plugged in to what God asks of us, never mind whether this Friend is used to speaking of God, if there were an opening to draw out the several threads on RantWoman’s mind. RantWoman has a versatile God and supposes this will happen somehow. Hold the path to there in the light.

Bad Friend Bingo

RantWoman does not do Instagram but if she did, she would look up @rsofshit just to embrace the provocative userid.

Best daffodil ministry RantWoman ever heard was about a bunch of cigarette butts among some daffodils and if one focuses only on the cigarette butts one will miss the daffodils.

 Besides the mere fact of being able to abide the daffodil ministry in the first place, there is some seriously bad Friend cred as far as lack of zeal about purging the world of cigarette butts.

 

From RantWoman’s worship experience today:

SERIOUSLY Late Friend Ka-ching.

Look world, RantWoman is a judgmental witch about tardiness. Perhaps the spiritual discipline RantWoman is supposed to cultivate is about bearing with this sin.

Or perhaps RantWoman is supposed to summon the right words…

 

Ministry of fussing with one’s Smartphone. Even if Twitter is serving up something that might deserve to make it out of one’s mouth. 

Ministry of mind wandering to an embarrassing degree even when the message definitely speaks to one’s condition. 

Theme words from others ministry: ANNOYING, moments of peacefulness, gratitude.

 
Theme words / phrases on RantWoman’s mind but not in orderly enough form to spill all over Meeting for Worship.

 

Prayer and falling bodies and spiritual accompaniment as through the lens of Twitter

 

So far past ANNOYING that the only word is WRONG.

 

Great moments from the Fourth of July

 

The odd communion of a conversation with another blind person about things that drive sighted people BONKERS without even trying. Just imagine if RantWoman WANTED to be driving people bonkers.

Popcorn, Pride, driving people bonkers?

Dear Beloved Community.

 

RantWoman’s various strands of document draft are bursting with popcorn kernel moments of provocation. RantWoman thinks it would be lovely if the strands of popcorn provocation would kindly comb themselves into straightforward linear commentary. RantWoman, humbly, is unclear that it would be wise to wait around for that to occur. Instead RantWoman needs to limp forward trying to step carefully around numerous conversational landmines and hopefully admitting rays of Light as needed.

 

Speaking of peculiar rays of Light, RantWoman invites readers to enjoy the following rant.

https://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2019/07/faith-parking-bikeshare.html  RantWoman does not apologize for tangling points she really means in with concrete ways to address things that annoy her but does hold all in the light as they read.

 

One, though definitely not the only way to encapsulate some of what is on RantWoman’s mind: RantWoman is still hearing LOTS of verbal and procedural “SHUT UP RantWoman.” Luckily that is not all RantWoman is hearing. Still, RantWoman invites all the many “shut up RantWoman voices to consider whether maybe possibly, “shut up RantWoman” is preventing Friends from hearing things RantWoman is, SERIOUSLY, deeply grateful for. RantWoman is not Miss Manners here, but RantWoman thinks one entirely welcome response would be “RantWoman, please say more.” RantWoman is REALLY clear about two points though:

 

--Much else has occurred in Meeting for Business. Say More belongs there too.

 

--RantWoman needs to ask for some specific reasonable accommodations and Friends need the opportunity to TRY AGAIN.

 

Lest we get too mired in gratitude though, let us switch to the recent democratic presidential debates. One of MANY peculiar rays of Light to arise via the recent Democratic presidential candidates debates came the first night from someone named Marianne.  RantWoman apologizes for not remembering her full name and does not apologize for the thought, based on various flavors of loopiness, that remembering her full name may not be in the cards.

 

Marianne whoever she is spoke at one point about “unnecessary chronic conditions.” RantWoman did not go back and review any clips; RantWoman is guessing Ms. Marianne meant conditions caused by environmental and workplace practices or by inadequate health care weak on prevention.  RantWoman though was deeply amused by the direction commentary on “Crip Twitter*” took. Writer after writer listed a large number of difficult, unpleasant chronic conditions they found to be completely unnecessary parts of their lives.

 

*Crip Twitter???? Language that is offensive when used to label someone is sometimes reappropriated by people proud to embrace an identity, a reality when speaking about themselves. RantWoman considers herself a pretty formidable word nerd though not a super giant scholar of Quaker lexicography.  At any rate, RantWoman is pretty sure this point of view has historically applied to the word Quaker, to the word queer, and even recently to the word “dope.”   Digression about the latter soon to be available on RantWoman’s other blog. Digression about this point and the word :”namecalling” due separately here.

 

And speaking of “namecalling,” have readers forgotten about RantWoman’s badly calibrated internal idiot detector? The idiot detector is kind of like a Smartphone camera: sometimes the idiot is in front of the idiot detector. Somethings the idiot is behind the idiot detector. The badly calibrated part:  sometimes there is more than one idiot within range. So if RantWoman were to say “I don’t want to think, but if I did..” ONE interesting tack might be to ASK RantWoman to say more. Scary thought? Maybe Rantwoman would manage to say GENTLY that  ignoring texts and emails, not being available at hours RantWoman considers sane for phoning, and then all sorts of last minute scrambles and other calendar related hiccups in the space-time continuum are what is on RantWoman’s mind. RantWoman could not care LESS whether everyone has same experiences with… and therefore RantWoman is not supposed to take it personally. On one hand, RantWoman does not take  it personally, more like “ya wanna hassle me? Get in line.” On the other hand, RantWoman is TRYING to say something others seem not able to say “Look, Friend, how is that working out for you? Can you see how the problem might get in the way of...”

 

How many other moments of word nerd fussiness can readers of this blog identify. Sure, Pride month is over, but can Friends deal with “Word nerd Pride?” For instance RantWoman knows several transgender people and is happuy to talk about pronouns. Alas, RantWoman is frequently called to embrace complexity and opine that for RantWoman pronouns are an essay question.

 

RantWoman lately has been tossing the phrase Disability Pride in the same salad bowl with the phrase “unnecessary chronic conditions.” RantWoman is still tossing around the concept of Disability Pride. Pride in DNA lotto? Pride in…? pride in NOT accepting the erasure of “unnecessary ….conditions.” RantWoman could find it easy to do Dial a Tirade here so readers are in luck: just hold the tangle in the light for now.

 

But there are other moments of word nerd fussiness on this blog as well.
RantWoman is still seasoning how to deal with one giant continuing spasm of word nerd fussiness:  RantWoman would be inclined to start with email but… RantWoman also has people offering speak on RantWoman’s behalf except that RantWoman has no confidence that messages will be delivered completely. RantWoman cannot deal with one on one conversation for reasons not related to the need for the conversation. RantWoman has no sense even of who would be good to help with conversation.
 
But RantWoman's main point:
Eureka, beloved community! We are at unity. RantWoman weirdly is NOT clear what to make of the last business meeting. But, just SUPPOSE,…we are actually at Unity? Suppose no one actually wants to deal with blindness, not the rest of the room, certainly not RantWoman. Does anyone think RantWoman enjoys needing to bore people with rambles about white canes and bungee cords? Does anyone think RantWoman enjoys being utterly unable to perform all that social lubricating eye contact and eye behavior that everyone else relies on like a crutch to prop up social interaction? Does anyone seriously think RantWoman enjoys … being able very successfully to perform a number of annoying blind person behaviors…driving sighted people bonkers (don’t anser that!)…a whole long list…?

 

News flash! “Enjoys” is not really the point? What does God require of us?  What about that “God ad personal butler model of Divine Presence? What opportunities for spiritual growth are tangled in this story? What openings does anyone suppose might arise, oh say in the realm of “doable even by Quakers younger than 60?”

 

RantWoman, humbly, is NOT called to disappear. RantWoman is NOT called indefinitely to honor a request to stay away from Business Meeting. On the contrary, if RantWoman were not already clear that there need to be some serious conversations about disability BEFORE the most recent business meeting, RantWoman is quite clear of that now.

 

Stay tuned for further developments and please hold the whole circus in the Light..

 

In Light and Faithfulness.

Blue cake Birthday Bramble

Tactile birthday Cake Creative Process

Happy RantWoman's Birthday World.

RantWoman has no lived longer than either grandmother and longer than RantDad's younger sister. Now what?


Gotta Love Those Google Images

Can one tell, unicorn or bird on top?

Worship Word of the week was "Annoying." We are SO far past "annoying!"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a badass!

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Testifying about Manufactured Cruelty

 

One of the points nauseating RantWoman, paraphrasing: all this is occurring under American flags.

 

How revoltingly reminiscent of all the Central Americans pleading for asylum in the 1980’s who talked about the presence of people from the US, people who spoke with a gringo accent, during the tortures they suffered.

 

Only now things are SO much worse, extrapolating from my diet of NPR without fully cited research.

 

Cuts to all the US programs that nurture civil society in Central America.

 

Unending flows of guns from the US southward to fuel the gang violence in Central America and the narcos / cartels in Mexico.

 

People fleeing violence in their home countries and being either detained under barbaric conditions in the US or driven into the arms of the narcos and cartels in Mexico.

RantWoman Tweet

Running late to the #CloseTheCamps protest. The good news: the cat will get fed. The bad news: she will be better fed than the PEOPLE in the #TrumpConcentrationCamps.

 

A photo of the neighborhood protest Rantwoman attended, posted without further comment.

Martin Luther King Memorial Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lift up the fallen

RantWoman has a number of posts ripening in DRAFTS folders. RantWoman’s head is also about to explode due to current events. Yet RantWoman is clear to grab the kind of moment that wound up lasting all LAST Friday. RantWoman did not witness the event personally and has no idea whether there were media  moments.
 
This post is intended as the sort of prayer RantWoman learned from a Quaker pastor RantWoman likes to ride with. RantWoman likes to ride with this Friend both because she is tall and therefore owns cars with legroom and because when she passes things like car accidents on the highways she just knows to say a prayer. Here there is a tweet stream. There is need for prayer. There is prayer.
 
RantWoman is reminded of a quote from somewhere “God does not call the equipped. God equips the called.” Or maybe RantWoman is just old and somehow the psychic trails of previous gravity grabs human body moments do in fact mean “equipped.”

 

RantWoman generally would not expect to be grabbing from Twitter a quote from the International Conference of Police Chaplains, and a quote that long predates a recent Friday’s Twitter. The quote comes from someone who liked a RantWoman tweet about chaplains and traffic and maybe lots of people who had witnessed...

 

Christopher Mael (@my_1k) tweeted at 6:23 PM on Sun, May 19, 2019:

"Your job is not to judge. Your job is not to figure out if someone deserves something. Your job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken,and to heal the hurting." - International Conference of Police Chaplains manual

 Spoiler alert: “lift up the fallen, restore the broken,” certainly apply in the metaphorical sense but are not exactly applicable in the physical sense and heal the hurting (survivors) is partly the work of God, partly up to competent medical / mental health professionals.

 Back to last Friday. No matter how much “Just pray” might be on point, traffic tie-up notices generally do not come with “A chaplain is at the scene.”

 And finally, even if there is a chaplain on the scene, if RantWoman does not need to travel in the vicinity of the scene, she does not NEED to read the tweet stream all day long.

 But RantWoman is a grownup making grownup choices. RantWoman is also maybe a tiny bit of an adrenalin junkie. Or else RantWoman would find it difficult NOT to keep looking. In any case, RantWoman did keep reading. The tweet stream eventually yielded several voices of people who had witnessed the reason to have a chaplain on the scene. RantWoman did not repeat but referred others up the tweet stream.

 Someone else posted the number for the National Suicide Hotline.

 

The tweet stream also yielded a picture that is as dignified as possible under the circumstances, but that RantWoman is STILL not going to post. The tweet stream also mentioned another picture that RantWoman does not even want to think about, the kind of picture that belongs in police evidence files but that no relative or friend or neighbor or passerby reasonably wants to look at unless they absolutely have to. That picture got taken down off Instagram, an electronic venue RantWoman never visits in the first place.

 

By the end of the day, RantWoman’s mentions seem to have collected people who knew each other and lived near the scene of the event. RantWoman’s final tweet: Heartfelt condolences all around. Take care of yourselves. Do not be afraid to reach out if you need, to the Crisis clinic or a faith community.

 

RantWoman’s tweets come against a background of gravity grabs the human body moments.

 In grad school RantWoman needed to request an extension on a political science paper to attend a memorial. Speaking of this, RantWoman learned that in addition to political and work connections to the deceased, the professor RantWoman was speaking to also was going to the same memorial. Speaking of the shared grief was itself healing.

 

Because this post is about falling human bodies, RantWoman also notes this reflection on the anniversary of 9/11

https://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/09/memorial-because-what-else-does-one-do.Html

 

There. Now back to the rest of RantWoman’s emotional torrents.

 

 

Our Country: Right its wrongs--and try to celebrate anyway

RantWoman definitely believes in the sort of divine presence who can handle …

 

This week in peculiar honesty.

 Grocery Store Clerk:  Hi. How are you?

 RantWoman: I am well…but I can do cranky if needed.

 Grocery store clerk, chuckling: Um, no thank you. I have already had two rounds of cranky today.

Text message to old friend:

 

Happy Fourth of July.

 

Old friend: whatever .

 RantWoman: Ummm, wanna have a pissy and depressed contest?

 Old friend: Lol…YES!!!

 

Things one probably is not supposed to find as mirth-evoking as they are:

 

God is BOUNTIFUL. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. In the case of a certain nation’s capital, it POURED. It was so rainy that the President could barely be seen behind his fogged up bulletproof glass enclosure. Bless your heart Mr. President.

 

The Russian defense ministry suggested they might be able to help a certain individual do a military parade right.

 Has anyone heard of the term Potemkin Villages, basically like movie sets all dressed to look good at least from one angle. The Potemkin village du jour is a Customs and Border Protection office somewhere in the Tucson sector. It is FULL of all the supplies lacking at the other #TrumpConcentrationCamps. And all the detainees who might use them appear to be on their ways to new facilities.

 

#RevolutionaryWarAirportLetters  a hashtag RantWoman is blithely leaving blank any explanation of the origin of this hashtag!

 

Now, may the Lord bless us and keep us..and make his face to shine upon us and Give Us Peace.